Son of the captain of a merchant vessel; was educated at the collège of the Oratorians at Nantes and Paris; worked as a teacher at the collèges of Niort (1782), Saumur (1783), Vendôme (1784), Juilly (1787), Arras (1788); was a founder of a patriotic association in Nantes and a member of the Jacobin club; elected deputy from Loire-Inférieure to the Convention nationale (National Convention) (1792-1795); voted for death sentence in the trial of King Louis XVI; was an initiator of the atheistic movement aimed at the extinction of Christianity in France; assisted Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois in the ruthless massacre of the counterrevolutionaries in Lyon (1793); excluded from the Jacobin Club (1794) after a split with Maximilien Robespierre; succeeded in engineering the fall of the Jacobin dictatorship (27 Jul 1794); was briefly arrested (9 Aug 1795) for his active role during the Reign of Terror; amnestied (26 Oct 1795) and returned to private life; offered services to Paul Barras; served as ambassador to the Cisalpine Republic (1798) and then to Batavian Republic (1799); appointed minister of police (20 Jun 1799 - 15 Sep 1802); helped Napoléon Bonaparte in preparation of the coup of 18 Brumaire, Year VIII (9 Nov 1799 - 10 Nov 1799); worked on organizing secret police, curbing the royalists and extreme Jacobins; was created member of the Sénat conservateur (15 Sep 1802); restored to the office of the minister of police (18 Jul 1804 - 3 Jun 1810) after he supported the proclamation of Napoléon as emperor; provisionally put in charge of the interior ministry (29 Jun 1809 - 12 Oct 1809); intrigued with the English against Napoléon; dismissed from his ministerial post and appointed governor general of Rome (1809); served as minister of police (20 Mar 1815 - 23 Jun 1815) during the Cent-Jours (Hundred Days); nominated a peer of France (2 Jun 1815); following the abdication of Napoléon, was elected to the Commission of Government (22 Jun 1815); served as president of the Commission (23 Jun 1815 - 7 Jul 1815); while ostensibly working for the recognition of Napoléon II, facilitated the return of the Bourbons; appointed minister of police (9 Jul 1815 - 24 Sep 1815); was elected to the Chambre des députés [Chamber of Deputies] (1815-1816); sent as ambassador to Saxony (1815); proscribed as a regicide (1816) and died in exile.